In The Garden Mood

Last Friday I spent the day at Wisley.   I was recording for the podcast, it’s one for the next series so more detail in the new year. I was seeing the plants in a very different way thanks to seeing them through someone else’s eyes.

Shapes and colours at Wisley

Yet it wasn’t just seeing the individual plants, it was seeing them in combination with other plants.  Really seeing them, looking at the shapes, the colours and the textures and then looking at how that combines with the plant to the left or the right, in front or behind it. 

I find that once I have made an episode about a plant I start to spot it everywhere.  So very quickly I saw some small yucca plants about 4 feet high, dotted through a flower bed.  But whilst I was looking at the yuccas my interviewees were looking at the under planting - small mounds of heathers.   The yucca says Mexico and heat and an arid climate to me, though if you’ve listened to this episode they may also say M&S to you! Heathers on the other hand make me think of Scotland and moorland and rain. Clearly both grow together in our climate, we’ve seen that the yucca will seemingly survive anywhere; including in a writer’s front room or a London garden. Yet somehow the combination didn’t feel right for me.

Which brought us to the subject of how a garden makes you feel. All gardens are about personal taste.  Your vision  of your most beautiful imagined garden will not be the same as mine. But the idea of thinking about how you want your garden to make you feel and then how you can set about that, not necessarily with the expense of changing the hard landscaping but thinking about the plants and specifically the combinations of plants, is fascinating.

I remembered my walk along the New York High Line where the plants appeared to seamlessly weave together. In the midst of a frenetic city, noise, traffic, crowds - here was an elevated calm, contained, verdant space. The only real buzzing was the insects, the humans strolling through the garden, were relaxed.

A Book Recommendation

“You will have to get down on your knees to see the flowers - and then remain breathlessly transfixed for half an hour.” Planting the Natural Garden

After I had recorded the conversation with Richard Hayden, I hastened to the nearest bookshop to seek out a book by the High Line designer, Piet Oudolf. It’s now on the top of my bedside pile of gardening books.  In the introduction it says:

“Perennials: There is no doubt that they are the mainstay of the modern garden. There is a huge variety available, from garden centres, online mail order nurseries, and small specialists. But this was not always the case.

This book was first published in 1990 and at that time its authors, Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf, were very much having to make the case for perennials. ‘Dream Plants’ as it was originally titled in Dutch, was about promoting perennials. and a particular range of them, to a public who actually knew very little about them.”

The book is divided into 3 sections:

Part 1 - Plant Descriptions

Part 2 - Uses

Part 3 - Planting Plans and Combinations

So you can search plants and it will list species and cultivars, where they come from, what conditions they like.

Then they explain that though there are a thousand and one uses for these “Dream Plants”, they have made a few suggestions to get you started. So there is a list of plants for if you want to create tranquility. Or structure - ‘not porridge’!

Then finally there are planting plans and lists of good plant combinations.

So if its not too late and family and friends have asked you for gift suggestions can I recommend:

Planting The Natural Garden by Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen

A Review

In the meantime I received a very exciting email on my way home from Wisley from a picture editor at the Times asking me is I had any photographs related to the podcast.  I could have said yes thousands of plant pics - yuccas, snowdrops, monkey puzzle trees but I didn’t think that was what she meant .

The email said: ‘Ann Treneman is writing about the best gardening podcasts and has included this one. The piece is running in the Times Weekend section on Dec 27th’.

Another bit of serendipity to see out 2025.

I do hope you have a peaceful Christmas and that there are a few gardening related items in your stocking on Christmas morning!

Sally

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